Neil Gorsuch is a Supreme Court Judge. I am, not unexpectedly, unhappy about this new development for our current administration. However, maybe a little unexpectedly, I don't hate Gorsuch. I just really don't know him. Watching his confirmation hearings, the man being considered to help set the law of the land could be one of any number of people. He refused to reveal his position or opinion on any number of issues. (Among them are his thoughts on a woman's right to choose, in a time where the rights of women are in a state of fragility and question not seen for decades.) The newest member of the Supreme Court, arguably one of the nine most powerful people in this country, is someone I would not recognize walking down the street. While I am sure he is more than qualified, he seems a man more superficial than substantive now placed in a job that requires an unprecedented ability to make decisions not based on how they seem but how they are and will be for years.
More than that, the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as wholly politicized the judicial branch which is seen by many as the last bipartisan place left in Washington. Neil Gorsuch is not only the by-product of a republican Congress who refused to even consider a more than qualified Merrick Garland, leaving a vacancy on the bench that has tremendous implications, but is also the figurehead of a Congress controlled solely by the majority. Whether or not you believe that democrats had a right to do so, the filibuster of Gorsuch's confirmation represents one of the most salient ways the minority group in Congress can prevent their voice from becoming obsolete. The decision to "go nuclear" silences that dissent and creates a dangerous tyranny of the majority.
Neil Gorsuch is a well respected judge and I have no doubt he will preform his new duties with nothing but the respect and consideration they deserve. However, he, too, has become a political pawn in an administration that has consistently demonstrated that the only voice worthy of being heard is a thundering one. Gorsuch's confirmation is simply a natural progression of an inability to hear the powerless or address any of their concerns.
T.S Eliot finishes his poem The Hollow Men by saying, "this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper."
I think it's about time we started listening a little closer.
